FISHING REPORT 2-01-12                                                                                   

It might be another Christmas holidays but it seems nothing much has changed from last year with three people in already telling me the same story. Unfortunately the story is not one of all the fish they have caught but a story of boats breaking down needing assistance and being ignored by others. Each of the three stories was similar with not just one boat ignoring them but several. While i except that you may not always realize that a boat might be broken down especially with so many on the water this time of the year but i think it should be fairly obvious when you see someone waving with both arms in a boat with the engine cover off. This was the case with one of my customers where he had at least two boats almost within shouting distance wave and keep going. While we all want to get to our fishing spots as quickly as possible the 5 minutes of assistance we give to someone else could at minimum save someone a bit of stress but possibly save a life. While saving a life sounds a bit extreme if you don’t stop you don’t know how desperate the situation is, as was the case with a customer a couple of years ago when he was fishing offshore and had a small fire in the electrical wiring meaning he had no radios or electric winch. Also in the panic his mobile phone fell out of his shirt pocket overboard. Then he went to use his flares which only one would work. During all of this four boats went past him two of them waving and continuing on their way but luckily for him someone on the land noticed his flare and raised the alarm. If you are broken down and need assistance and you are trying to flag someone down use your net or a piece of clothing something that can’t be just seen as a friendly wave so you are clear that you need assistance. Use your mobile phone and dial 000 ask for the water police, obviously if your radio is working call the coast guard or other boats for assistance there is also a phone number you can call for the coast guard as well. If you do see a boat in trouble assistance maybe as simple as making a phone call for them to get help and will only take five minutes out of your day but most importantly it might be you in trouble one day.

With so many people around during the holidays there has been plenty of fishing reports and as usual almost every species has been reported. One of the standouts for the week was another one of those allusive Mulloway that many of us experts tell you all these special ways to catch them when all you really need to do is have a bait in the water. That was the case when Wally Little was fishing during the daytime on Friday near French island was sick of catching undersized pinkies picked up an old bay trout frame and hooked it onto a 2/0 hook hoping to get something other than the pinkies and would have been happy with an old sting ray but was pleasantly surprised when a 25.3kg mulloway appeared beside the boat the problem was at almost 1.5m long it wouldn’t fit into the net and the only way to get it into the boat was to physically pick it up and lift it in. This was the second of these reports I received over the last couple of weeks with the first from Scotty Bradshaw from Pioneer Bay on the 23 December off Sandy Point on a smelly old salmon head in the middle of the day he managed a Mulloway that came in at just on 20 kilos and 1.3metres long.

Snapper and whiting make up the majority of the reports this week and both vary a lot in size and a bit of work and time is needed to get a bag of decent fish. The snapper have been best early in the morning especially last week with the early tide change and we had several bags of pinkies around the 40cm mark reported. There were a couple of success stories from during the day but they were few and far between with most of what was caught were small or undersize. The majority of the bigger pinkies were caught in the Corinella area around the barge hole and pelican island with the odd one taken at the corals. The undersize pinkies were a bit easier to find and we had reports from everywhere, saury’s and squid was the best bait for the bigger ones while the smaller ones were caught on anything. There was one or two reports of pinkies from below the bridge near the red pole but many were undersize.

Whiting were very good early in the week but as the boating traffic got busier the whiting got smaller and the eskys not quite as full. Dickies bay has seen a lot of whiting over the last week or so and although several anglers are still bagging out there isn’t much in the bag over 30cm. The best whiting are being found in the quieter areas of the bay and we are still seeing them as big as 42cm. Maggie shoal and higher, between Reef Island and coronet bay on the weed beds and the bank between Rhyll and Newhaven are where the best fish are coming from. Like the snapper i have had a few reports from below the bridge in Cleeland bight but there hasn’t been much consistency to the reports.

There were a few good gummies reported this week with 8kg the best caught at the corals early in the morning. Most other reports of gummies from the corals have been of undersize ones with the better ones still being caught in the channel along French Island.

Offshore and apart from a couple of days the weather hasn’t been all that favourable over the last couple of weeks. The rumours of stripeys continue and several large patches of working birds are now being seen but as yet we haven’t weighed any or spoken to anybody that has actually caught one, but they shouldn’t be far away. The flathead are still being caught in good numbers but some of the size has disappeared and there is a mixture of tigers and sandies coming back, still a healthy size but a bit smaller than a couple of weeks ago. most of the flathead have been caught in 40m to 50m of water and there has also been a mixture of other fish, gummies, pinkies, gurnard, couta, yakkas, squid and salmon coming back from the same area with the most disturbing reports being those of Draught boards. Makos are now starting to show up with several being reported and as usual mostly smaller ones from around the windmills area.

There have been quite a few landbased reports this week with so many visitors to the area that don’t have boats. Salmon and flathead make up the majority of the reports with a few trevally, pinkies and calamari. Sunderland bay and smiths beach rocks has been the best with several trevally and salmon with the odd pinkie being caught but the fishing window is only short with the low tide a must for the best fishing. Low tide has also been very good for those using soft plastics at the San Remo back beach. Flathead has been the main catch by anglers wading around in the shallows bouncing soft plastics off the bottom and there were several caught on Wednesday and Thursday. The jetties have been mixed and with plenty of people swimming around them it seems to have spooked a lot of the fish during the day and it has been the evening and early morning that have been successful. To get up to date daily reports just go to our facebook page. (www.facebook.com/JimsBaitAndTackle)